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An international group of researchers led by Professor of Music Education Mario Dunkel is exploring the role of music in the rise of populism. The Volkswagen Foundation is funding the project with just under one million euros. more

For more than 15 years Henrik Mouritsen has been conducting research on magnetoreception in birds. Now, he has summarised the current scientific knowledge in the journal Nature. Here, the neurobiologist talks about his fascination with birds and why fundamental research is so important.more

A new Collaborative Research Centre is to be established at the University: the research project on “hearing acoustics” will receive around eight million euros in funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) over the next four years. The head of the CRC is professor of psychoacoustics Volker Hohmann.more

Doctor of chemistry Jannika Lauth was awarded a Carl von Ossietzky Young Researchers' Fellowship earlier this year. In her research Lauth produces tiny semiconductor sheets which can conduct electricity when light is shone on them. She is using innovative laser methods to study these two-dimensional nanoparticles. Potential applications include ultrathin solar cells, high-speed transistors and energy-saving LEDs.more

Individualised and online-based is how Anke Hanft, scientific director of the University of Oldenburg's Centre for Lifelong Learning (C3L) sees the future of academic teaching and continuing education. The expert in continuing education and university management talks in an interview about why changes in the working life are also affecting universities. more

A team led by geochemist Dr. Katharina Pahnke from Oldenburg has discovered important evidence that the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels at the end of the last ice age was triggered by changes in the Southern Ocean.more

What happens at the molecular level when we smell, see and hear? At the University of Oldenburg the Research Training Group "Molecular basis of sensory biology" has been studying these processes since 2013. The German Research Foundation (DFG) has now approved funding for the group for another four and a half years.more

The skin, our largest sensory organ, is the subject of dermatologist Ulrike Raap‘s research
and medical care. She describes it as an “architectural masterpiece“ and hopes that by gaining
a better understanding of its components she can pave the way for the development of
novel treatment approaches.more

Religion has become a huge social topic once more since the start of the millennium. How can we coexist peacefully in a religiously diverse world? Religion educationalist Joachim Willems is looking for answers.more

As of 2018 Oldenburg University will take over the academic implementation of a project that has been included in Germany's largest research programme in the humanities: the "Prize Papers" project has been admitted to the Academy Programme, which is financed by the German federal and state governments.more

Following a test phase, German rail company Deutsche Bahn has announced plans to equip train station security personnel at trouble spots with body cameras or "bodycams". An interview with Oldenburg data protection experts Jürgen Taeger and Edgar Rose.more

"Internationalisation" is more than just a catchword for Oldenburg University. In addition to boosting its foreign student numbers it also aims to attract international researchers. Esther Ruigendijk, Vice President for Early Career Researchers and International Affairs, talks about creating a welcoming culture and recruiting the best brains. more

Migratory birds find their way to their destination with astonishing accuracy. For a long time it was unclear how they determined their east-west position. Now Henrik Mouritsen, an Oldenburg expert on migratory birds, together with an international team of researchers has shown how reed warblers determine their east-west position by detecting the angle by which magnetic north differs from true north.more

Assessing the state of an ecosystem solely on the basis of short-term changes in the number of different species it contains can lead to false conclusions, a new study by an international team of researchers led by the ecologist Helmut Hillebrand shows. In order to assess ecosystems experts should instead focus on analysing the turnover of species within a system. more

The Antarctic Krill, a small crustacean, is one of the world's most abundant species and the central diet of a number of animals in the Southern Ocean. Results by researchers of the University of Oldenburg now indicate, that mainly competition for food drives the regularly occurring fluctuations in stock size. more

Addressing research gaps and providing the scientific basis for marine conservation – these are the aims of the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity. On Wednesday, the institute was officially inaugurated at the University of Oldenburg. A step that will allow the University and the Bremerhaven-based Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), to combine and build on their research excellence in this field.more

It may not be a beauty – pale and rather inconspicuous – but in terms of evolutionary biology this fish is a sensation: the first known European cave fish. Arne Nolte, an evolutionary geneticist from the University of Oldenburg, was involved in the spectacular discovery made north of Lake Constance. more

A group of students at Oldenburg University and Hochschule Emden/Leer has a vision: to help design a brand new mode of eco-friendly transport. Their goal is to win the international Hyperloop Pod Competition.more

Space for more than 130 scientists, a 30-metre-long measurement section and wind speeds of up to 150 kilometres per hour: the inauguration of the University of Oldenburg's new Research Laboratory for Turbulence and Wind Systems (WindLab) took place in the presence of Gabriele Heinen-Kljajić, Minister for Science and Culture of Lower Saxony. more

Around the globe, an increasing number of plant and animal species are introduced into new regions through human activity. Researchers at the universities of Oldenburg and Vienna and at the Senckenberg have now discovered that the spread of species can be convincingly explained by a combination of global trade flows and the species’ original distribution.more

Scientists at Oldenburg University can now use a "digitizing robotic microscope" for biological and medical research. Oldenburg University is one of the few German universities where this new type of microscope is in use. more

Schmidt Ocean Institute’s research vessel Falkor returned with a diverse crew of scientists who have newly found characteristics of the ocean’s “skin” also known as the sea surface microlayer. Members of the crew: Chief Scientist Oliver Wurl and his team from the University of Oldenburg.more

For several months the historical city of Palmyra was in the hands of terrorists. Ancient sites were destroyed and archaeological excavation areas ravaged. Historian Michael Sommer sees the damage as irreparable. more

Top computer scientists at the AVACS Transregional Collaborative Research Center have made problems in safety-critical systems that were allegedly "undecidable" solvable. In this interview AVACS Coordinator Werner Damm looks back on twelve exciting years with the project. more

Self-tracking is in vogue: more and more people are gathering data about their bodies. Sociologist Thomas Alkemeyer and sport scientist Mirko Brandes are studying this phenomenon – each from a different perspective.more

How does our planet manage to keep a steady climate? Thorsten Dittmar, leader of the Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment (ICBM) in Oldenburg, and an international team of scientists have just moved one step closer towards an answer to this question.more

How can organic matter dissolved in the ocean store carbon over thousands of years and maintain our climate in the process? To shed light on this question, marine scientists at the University of Oldenburg performed a laboratory experiment over several years. more

People in central Ukraine often speak a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian. Slavicist Gerd Hentschel is studying the phenomenon on location – and experiencing the consequences of the political crisis first-hand. more

Dr Holger Lindemann is guiding the inclusion process at Oldenburg's schools and researching it at the same time. In an interview Lindemann talks about visions and concerns, about new, different teaching and about the journey being its own reward.more

For the first time, a research team led by Prof. Dr. Henrik Mouritsen, a biologist and Lichtenberg Professor at the University of Oldenburg, has been able to prove that the magnetic compass of robins fails entirely when the birds are exposed to AM radio waveband electromagnetic interference.
more

Sabine Doering, literary scholar and President of the Hölderlin Society, has been awarded a renowned fellowship at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study (NDIAS). In this interview she talks about her research goals and explains what she finds so fascinating about the German poet Friedrich Hölderlin.more

Global CO2 emissions hit a new high in 2013. One solution for lowering these emissions is emissions transfers. Oldenburg University researcher Marco Springmann examines how these transfers can be integrated into international climate policy.more

Cryptography may not guarantee absolute security for communications but it creates very high hurdles for spying programmes. Oldenburg mathematicians Florian Heß and Andreas Stein discuss a field of research that is in high demand – and not just since the revelations of whistleblower Edward Snowden.more

Two hundred years of Wagner and no end in sight: festivals and ceremonies, productions, concerts, interpretations, documentations and tributes abound. And yet by no means has the subject been exhausted. Melanie Unseld talks in an interview about gender constructions, self-promotion, love, opera and pop music. more

Prof. Dr. Dr. Birger Kollmeier, Prof. Dr. Volker Hohmann (both members of the University of Oldenburg's "Hearing4all" Cluster of Excellence) and Dr. Torsten Niederdränk (Siemens AG) have been nominated by the jury as one of four teams for the renowned German Future Prize 2012, as announced by the Office of the Federal President of Germany, thereby honouring the outstanding developments by the team in the field of auditory systems.more

The larvae of coral reef fishes swimming in the ocean are just a few millimetres long. And yet they are able to find their way back to their native reef across distances of several kilometres. Oldenburg biologist Gabriele Gerlach has been studying precisely how they do this on Australia's Great Barrier Reef.more

The Founding Dean of the European Medical School Oldenburg-Groningen, Prof. Dr. Eckhart Hahn, in an interview about the sense of community among those involved in the project, the setting up of University Hospital Units and the selection of students – who have considerably more time for learning at Oldenburg. more

Germany suffers from a lack of university graduates. One reason why Germany is lagging behind in this respect compared to other countries is that German universities are insufficiently oriented towards the requirements of lifelong learning.
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How can small energy sources be integrated to form stable power grids? To answer this question the scientists working on the "SmartNord" project are looking to colony-forming insects. An interview with spokesman for the project Michael Sonnenschein and energy informatics expert Sebastian Lehnhoff.more

The University of Oldenburg is expanding: At the Wechloy campus a new building which will house the Neurosensorics and Safety-Critical Systems Research Centres is under construction. The main focus: medical technologies and human-machine communication. more